Happy Opening Day Eve, Braves fans! After an offseason like none other the organization has seen, I know you are all happy to get to drama happening between the white lines rather than in MLB conference rooms.
This is the second composite prospect list I’ve put together. Here is last year’s in case you want to bask in the warm glow of simpler times. For this list, I simply averaged the rankings across the lists that included the player, then penalized the player one point (adding to their score) for each list that they were not included. That means that Ronald Acuña, Jr., included on all 11 lists with an average ranking of 1, scored a 1.00. Anfernee Seymour showing up on 5 lists with and average rating of 34.6, scores 40.6. I have only included the prospects that showed up at least four times. Where there was a tie, I broke it by the highest ranking on any list.
For this composite ranking, I chose 6 national lists, and 5 lists from sources that specialize in Atlanta Braves coverage. They are as follows:
Baseball America
Baseball Prospectus
ESPN.com (Keith Law)
Fangraphs (Kiley McDaniel & Eric Longenhagen)
MLB Pipeline (Jim Callis & Jonathan Mayo)
SB Nation’s Minor League Baseball (John Sickles)
Outfield Fly Rule (yours truly)
Jeff Jones, aka @ProspectsBraves
Talking Chop
Tomahawk Take (Benjamin Chase)
Walk-Off Walk
All of these guys have put a lot of thought into these baseball players and bring their own unique insights to understanding who out of all of these players are most likely to provide future value to the Atlanta Braves. I encourage all readers to seek these writers out for their individual perspectives.
TIER ONE
It should be no surprise, but there was unanimous agreement on the top player in the Braves system.
- Ronald Acuña, Jr., OF – 1.00
Yes, he’s got Tier One all to himself. After rocketing through three minor league levels, destroying the Arizona Fall League, and then showing out as the best hitter in the Grapefruit League, the only thing Acuña hasn’t done is make the big league roster. Look for that milestone by mid-April.
TIER TWO
2. Kyle Wright, RHP – 3.09
3. Luiz Gohara, LHP – 3.18
4. Mike Soroka, RHP – 3.36
These three pitchers appeared as 2-3-4 in some order on every list except one (Keith Law put righty Ian Anderson at #3 and dropped Soroka). How they were listed was simply a preference about best overall upside (Wright) versus the best one-two power pitching combo (Gohara) versus the best command/control and performance (Soroka). For my part, ranking these three pitchers was the hardest decision when putting together my list.
TIER THREE
5. Kolby Allard, LHP – 6.27
6. Ian Anderson, RHP – 7.09
7. Cristian Pache, OF – 8.00
8. Max Fried, LHP – 8.30
9. Austin Riley, 3B – 8.80
10. Joey Wentz, LHP – 9.82
11. Bryse Wilson, RHP – 11.00
12. Touki Toussaint, RHP – 12.30
13. Alex Jackson, C – 14.30
Even though the score here are a wider spread, I’m going to lump these into one tier because the standard deviation of these prospects was remarkably low. These prospects all still have high ceilings but have one or two areas for improvement.
Several prospect writers on the national side expressed concern about Kolby Allard’s drop in velocity. Local writers overall seemed more likely to point to his strong performance in AA playing at the age of 19. On the flipside, national writers seemed to be more on-board with Ian Anderson, liking his pure stuff, while local writers on the whole seemed more concerned about the few innings pitched in the second half and his walk rate.
The national writers also like Cristian Pache just a touch more than the locals, but the gap between the two closed quite a bit from last year. The biggest question has been about Pache’s power potential, something he may have started to answer with his two home runs in Tuesday night’s Braves Futures Game.
After Acuña, the player with the least standard deviation among the lists was Max Fried. Pretty much everyone agreed he was the 8th-best prospect in the system, despite a season shortened by recurring blister issues. It’s likely a dominant performance in the Arizona Fall League soothed a lot of doubts.
Austin Riley was another Arizona Fall League standout, coming on the heals of a torrid final six weeks in AA Mississippi, and reports of much improved defense helped stoke fears from last season that a position change would be inevitable.
Rome rotation-mates Joey Wentz and Bryce Wilson were often grouped together, with most writers putting Wentz slightly ahead. They both made short work of the South Atlantic League in 2017. Wentz is slightly more polished, while Wilson has a slightly stronger fastball. Both pitch with poise and confidence beyond their years.
Touki Toussaint retains his high-ceiling, but some writers seem to be a little impatient in wanting to see Toussaint’s promise translate into better performance.
By all accounts, Alex Jackson took to the catching duties the Braves asked him to resume well, though he showed plenty of rust which probably contributed to his placement just on the inside of the Top 15. Jackson by all accounts has shown much improvement this spring, and he could be poised to spring closer to the top of this list (and on the organizational depth chart).
TIER FOUR
14. William Contreras, C – 17.50
15. Drew Waters, OF – 17.70
16. A.J. Minter, LHP – 17.70
17. Patrick Weigel, RHP – 18.00
18. Kyle Muller, LHP – 18.70
If you are looking for raw talent, you could do a lot worse than Tier Four. William Contreras has long been kind of an underground favorite among prospect hounds, but after a half season of being one of the best players in the Appalachian League the cat’s now out of the bag. Being the cousin of Cubs’ All-Star catcher Willson Contreras and getting a big league spring training invite doesn’t slow down the oncoming hype train.
The Braves 2017 2nd-round draft pick Drew Waters was Contreras’s teammate in Danville and will likely team with him again in Rome. A local kid out of Cherokee County just north of Atlanta, Waters has all the tools necessary to be a successful major league outfielder and just needs to smooth down some rough edges to his game.
Everyone loves A.J. Minter. The only disagreements are about how much to worry about his injury history, and philosophical ones about the true value of a relief pitcher. Because of this, Minter had the highest standard deviation of any player in the Top 20.
Patrick Weigel’s UCL tear was by far the biggest medical setback in 2017 for any Braves prospect, and that caused almost a 5-rank drop from last season.
With the Braves being so aggressive in 2017 with promotions of their top prospects, it stuck out that the 2016 2nd-rounder was kept in short season ball. Muller overcame some tendinitis to post some great August outings, and seems set to climb the prospect lists with a good season in Rome this year.
TIER FIVE
19. Dustin Peterson, OF – 22.44
20. Travis Demeritte, IF – 23.75
21. Tucker Davidson, LHP – 23.78
22. Freddy Tarnok, RHP – 24.40
23. Brett Cumberland, C/OF – 25.29
24. Ricardo Sanchez, LHP – 26.89
25. JC Encarnacion, IF – 28.00
26. Izzy Wilson, OF – 30.00
27. Drew Lugbauer, C/1B/3B – 30.89
Another large, tight grouping with several more intriguing players with just a few warts. Dustin Peterson missed time with a broke hamate bone in his hand suffered during spring training, and it likely effected him the rest of the season. Based on his spring performance however, it looks like he his completely recovered and could make it to Atlanta this year.
Travis Demeritte had a roller-coaster 2017, sandwiching a horrible slump between a hot start and end of the season. The Braves will continue to look at him at several positions, trying to create another potential super-utility player.
No Braves prospect had more helium over the course of last season than Tucker Davidson, with Baseball America in particular ranking him highly and touting the lefty former JUCO.
The Braves 3rd-round pick last July, Freddy Tarnok is a talented but raw right-hander that was seen more of a project due to his late entry into baseball. His placement in 2018 will be interesting to see.
No position player prospect other than Acuña was hotter at the plate more so than Brett Cumberland in May for Rome. Questions about his catching and the lack of power exhibited after a promotion to advanced-A Florida caused some writers to question Cumberland’s path to the majors however. The Braves may answer that with a position change; Cumberland played almost exclusively in the outfield in his successful winter-ball excursion to Australia.
Ricardo Sanchez has been occasionally dominating and often frustrating, very often in the same game. The Braves liked the lefty enough to put him on the 40-man roster, and a conversion to relief pitching may be coming soon.
JC Encarnacion is quickly supplanting William Contreras as a prospect hound’s favorite underground prospect. The 20-year-old has shown power potential and good reflexes at the hot corner, and will be looking for his first full-season ball as a pro.
Izzy Wilson is similar to Drew Waters, a toolbox of a player that is looking to consistently bring it all into games. Though Wilson seems to have been in the organization forever, he’s only 9 months older than Waters.
Drew Lugbauer primarily played third base for the Michigan Wolverines, but the 10th-rounder is ticketed mostly for behind-the-plate duty in the Braves system. He looked fairly rusty at the position in 2017, but reports out of instructionals and spring training have him making an Alex Jacksonesque improvement behind the dish. Whatever his defensive position, his calling card is tremendous in-game power.
Presented without further comment is the remainder of the list.
28. Huascar Ynoa, RHP
29. Jacob Lindgren, LHP
30. Lucas Herbert, C
31. Anyelo Gomez, RHP*
32. Derian Cruz, IF
33. Akeel Morris, RHP
34. Anfernee Seymour,, OF
35. Jefrey Ramos, OF
36. Thomas Burrows, LHP
37. Josh Graham, RHP
38. Ray-Patrick Didder, IF/OF
39. Jared James, OF
40. Braulio Vasquez, IF
41. Tyler Neslony, OF
42. Leudys Baez, OF*
43. Adam McCreery, LHP
44. Jasseel De La Cruz, RH
*no longer in the organization
SHAMELESS PLUG: Want to learn more about these and all of the other players in the Braves organization? Check out the 2018 Atlanta Baseball Preview, compiled by writers from THIS VERY BLOG plus our friend Tommy Poe from Walk-Off Walk. It’s a great primer for the upcoming Braves season, from the muggy heat of Atlanta to the even muggier heat of Orlando to the not-quite-so-muggy-but-still-pretty-muggy heat of Danville, Virginia.
Leave a Reply